Ben Simpfendorfer On How China Could Navigate US Trade War

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Ben Simpfendorfer, a partner and supply chain expert at Oliver Wyman in Hong Kong, said China could absorb the tariffs to a point, but its main strength comes from stripping out costs in advanced manufacturing, as well as its importance to supply chains running across lower-cost countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Mexico.

“The real shock here is there is no next China and its factories all over the world – there is no alternative,” Simpfendorfer said. “Yes, you’ll see bankruptcies in China from less efficient players, but the US is only a fraction of all exports. The hit to global growth is the problem; China is not alone in wanting to stabilise that.”

Read the full article here (paywall).